Using speech in psycholinguistics

Benjamin V. Tucker ( University of Alberta)

Using speech in psycholinguistics: From speech synthesis to spoken word recognition

What is the role of spoken language in language representation and recognition? This course is designed to provide an introduction to using spoken stimuli in psycholinguistic experiments and discuss some of the main issues related to the recognition of spoken language. While researchers often find it easier to create visual stimuli for psycholinguistic experimentation, visual stimuli provide a major limitation with regard to what can be said about language representation. Spoken language expands the understanding of language comprehension and how it is represented in the mind. This course will focus on important aspects of recording and preparing auditory stimuli. The course is designed to be “handson”, so that students will be designing stimuli for experiments, discussing different speech styles, and exploring ways in which stimuli can be recorded and prepared. We will also discuss some of the theoretical issues involved in the investigation of spoken language and language recognition and representation. in the domain of spoken word recognition. The course will be a combination of discussion and lab sessions where we work on the creation and preparation of spoken stimuli for experiments.